IPL 2022 highlights, KKR vs RR: Rinku Singh leads Kolkata Knight Riders to seven-wicket win

Nitish Rana ends it with a six off the first ball of the last over and so KKR win it with five balls in hand. His partner Rinku Singh just came in and took the chase by the scruff of the neck. The partnership between these two ends on 42 off just 23 balls. Rana contributed just 17 off 23 balls and so it was all about Rinku. That is the second consecutive defeat for RR and KKR avoid their sixth consecutive defeat. 

It won't be a surprise if Rinku Singh is called the player of the match after this. The last delivery of the 19th over is a full toss from Prasidh and Rinku whips it through long on for four to bring the scores level. 

Terrible misfield from Trent Boult and Rinku Singh gets another four runs. He has completely turned this chase KKR's way. This partnership has reached 50 in 34 balls out of which Rana has scored just nine. Prasidh missed the yorker and Rinku drives firmly. Boult ends up diving over the ball altogether and it goes from underneath towards the boundary. 

Back to back fours to start the 18th over bowled by Chahal makes it 13 off it in the end. Rinku has raced to 32 off 19 balls and his beligerence has made the equation come down to KKR needing 18 to win off the last two overs.

Short on the body from Prasidh and Rinku pulls it away in the air. The field is set for the offside so it lands safely and bounces past the boundary. 

KKR need 39 to win off 25 balls. Rinku Singh is on 15 off 10 while Nitish Rana is on 38 off 31 with Andre Russell and Sunil Narine still left to come so this is very much gettable for KKR. What have RR got up their sleeves?

Possibly shot of the tournament thus far. Kuldeep Sen sends a 141kph delivery into Rinku Singh's pads and the batter flicks deep into the leg side stands. 

These two teams are locked in battle here. Quite a different kind of match to the one that was played the last time they faced each other. There both sides scored over 200, here RR are doing good job of defending 153. 

Iyer goes for a pull off Boult, there is an audible nick as the ball goes past the batter and into the hands of the keeper. The umpire actually calls it wide and Samson reviews it immediately. Replays show a clear spike in the snicko when the ball passes the gloves so thats it for Iyer. 

Iyer charges down the track to Chahal and clears the long on boundary. That makes the partnership worth 51 runs off 37 balls. 

Rana hits a four off the third ball of the over to make it 4, 6, 4. Reverse sweep for the first four, slog sweep for the six and then another reverse sweep for the second four. The batters then take two runs to finish off the over. KKR 75/2 in 11 overs. 

Rana takes on Ashwin! He first breaks out a reverse sweep to send Ashwin over the keeper's head. Then a conventional slog sweep to send Ashwin over deep square leg.  

First timeout of the innings is taken. No boundaries for 17 deliveries now. While there haven't been too many dot balls as well, one of these two will have to try and go big now, unless they believe they can keep up a run rate of nearly 10 in the last 9 overs of the match. 

Ashwin and Chahal alternating now and the required rate is creeping above 9 now. Both Nitish Rana and Shreyas Iyer have good records against Ashwin, wonder if they will target him at some point. For now, both are content with trying to take a maximum of two off every ball. 

KKR 32/2. They aren't too far behind where RR was at this moment, except that they have lost an extra wicket. But the strength of RR's bowling attack and KKR's batting weaknesses mans that Samson's side have their noses slightly in front at the moment.  

Indrajith becomes a bit of a victim of his own shot. He ramps Prasidh over short fine leg off the third ball of the fifth and so the fielder gets pushed back to fine leg. Then comes the short ball and Inrajith miscues the pull, Ashwin is the fine leg fielder and he gets there in time to take a straightforward catch. 

Indrajith c Ashwin b Prasidh 15 (16); KKR 32/2 in 5.4 overs

Run rate is hovering around 5 runs an over which is well below par at the moment. But these two would be prioritising conserving wickets and if they can get a good partnership going well, that will be half the job done for KKR. 

146kph scorcher from Kuldeep. Length ball from outside off, Finch looks to force it through the offside, the ball takes his inside edge and smashes onto the stumps. That is one ugly dismissal and Finch wouldn't want to see that again. The contradiction continues, Finch is one of the all-time greats for Australia in limited overs cricket and has even got some big scores in India while playing for his country. But he continues to struggle in the IPL. 

Finch b Kuldeep Sen 4 (7), 16/1 in 3.1 overs

He is fine at the end of it all so this is turns out to be one of the funnier incidents of the season. Indrajith pushes a full ball to mid-on and both batters go for a tight single. Prasidh Krishna picks it up and it is unclear which end of the pitch he was aiming at because he gets Trent Boult, who was at the end of his delivery stride and standing almost at the halfway point of the pitch. Boult had seen that throw coming and jumped in reflex which meant that his shoe took most of the impact. The two batters run a second and they all have a laugh about it in the end. 

Indrajith gets a four off the second ball of the second over bowled by Prasidh Krishna.  Just a single comes after that off the last ball. 

It is Baba Indrajith who opens this time with Aaron Finch for KKR, Trent Boult has the ball in his hands for RR. 

Gavaskar says that Parag or Hetmyer could have been brought in ahead of Karun Nair. “People get these labels. ‘Finisher’. It means you have to come only in 14th or 15th over, that's not right. The man is in form, even if a wicket falls in the 11th over, get him out there”. 

“Way below par” says Matthew Hayden in the commentary box. Hetmyer picked the slack, as did Samson towards the end of his innings. The fact remains that the competition that is coming up next is between a bowling attack that is very much in form against an unsettled batting lineup. Wonder where this one will go. 

Ashwin takes a single off the first ball of the 20th and then Hetmyer sends the second to the boundary. He has made 23 runs in 9 balls. 

No more boundaries after those first two sixes but some smart running and one more wide makes this exactly the kind of penultimate over RR needed. They are now 142/5 going into the last over.